


tastes like cheap wine

by vexedcer



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash, Suicidal Ideation, Suicidal Thoughts, this is completely a vent piece for me dealing w my issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-04
Updated: 2017-11-04
Packaged: 2019-01-29 09:34:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12628071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vexedcer/pseuds/vexedcer
Summary: “Y’know,” Simon starts conversationally, looking out over the city, the sprawl of twinkling lights and the never ending sprouts of concrete buildings, raising the glass to his lips, “A month ago, I nearly jumped off here.”





	tastes like cheap wine

**Author's Note:**

> lmao this is a complete and utter vent/coping piece i started writing to hold it together so this is all informed by my mental health. so warnings for suicidal thoughts/ideation, alcohol and references to alcoholism.

“Y’know,” Simon starts conversationally, looking out over the city, the sprawl of twinkling lights and the never ending sprouts of concrete buildings, raising the glass to his lips, “A month ago, I nearly jumped off here.”

He doesn’t look away from the landscape unfolded in front of them but in the corner of his eye, he can see Jace look at him in shock, his hair flying as his head whips towards him. Simon raises the bottle to his lips again, slipping mildly on the wine.

It tastes cheap - Simon isn’t the most versed in viticulture, but he knows shitty from good at the very least. The taste isn’t why he’s drinking it. He’s drinking it for the looseness, the relaxation of his muscles and mind. He would like to thank whoever thought of mixing alcohol and blood in the aging process because they are a genius and Simon is tipsy

Of course, with the looseness of body comes the looseness of lips, which is why he’s telling Jace this. When he’s sober, he wouldn’t dare tell Jace, Clary, Luke that he stood at the easiest accessible high point on the Institute and tried to convince himself to fly. He did that once as a kid - jumped from a shed in his Bubba’s backyard wearing a cape fashioned out of bed sheets. He really thought he could. He broke his ankle. He was eight.

Jace slowly turns back to face the unending city and doesn’t say anything for a minute. He takes a swallow of his beer like it’ll make whatever he says next more palatable. Simon’s natural anxiety starts to swim through the subtle haze around his brain so he mirrors Jace in taking another drink. He watches Jace in his peripheral vision but never truly looks away from the vast stagnant lightshow of New York City below.

“Why didn’t you?” Jace asks eventually in a tone of voice Simon isn’t expecting. He doesn’t sound appalled or like he’s walking on eggshells. It’s flat - just an honest question. 

Simon shrugs. “Didn’t have the nerve,” he settles on finally, because he had stared out into the spread of the glittering city until the sun rose in vibrant oranges and pinks around the upright slabs of concrete, then went inside. Tonight is the first time he’s been out here since then. 

He couldn’t do it during the day. There would be too many people to see his mangled body dropped on the pavement in a splay of limbs then, people on their way to work and walking their dogs and returning from a night spent in a club or a stranger’s bedroom. They don’t deserve to see that - their lives shouldn’t be infringed on by his blood and his broken bones. At night, there would be a guard around to hear the thump or stumble upon his lifeless figure.

Simon drinks from the bottle again. The wine may be making him talk, but this isn’t the out-of-control high of the plasma. It’s gradual like regular wine. He never thought he'd be a drinker - he’d sworn off alcohol for almost his entire life after watching his mother destroy herself, but in a weird way he understands it now. That loose feeling, the buzz, the way his head fills with cotton and he can mindlessly drift through the world and forget. He understands why she craved it after his dad died.

They're both in mourning. Elaine mourned death, Simon mourns life. 

“I’ve thought about it a lot,” Jace says quietly, and Simon had figured; Jace, who held the Soul Sword aloft thinking it would kill him, who went with Valentine to the boat, who has less self-preservation than Simon which is a feat since Simon has virtually none. Jace seems the kind to do it bloody, in battle or by his own knife or even jumping. Simon supposes they’re the same in that regard.

“Why haven’t you?” Simon asks, since they’re taking turns apparently. He drinks more wine and feels that long-limbedness set in so he puts the bottle down on the ledge of the balcony wall to keep him from dropping or spilling it.

Jace stays quiet, and Simon thinks he’s not going to answer. He won’t push, he knows more than he should already and these are the things that probably shouldn’t be known in the first place. Jace swigs the beer and messily wipes his hand over his mouth. The lights before them slide like lense flares as Simon lets his eyes go unfocused, distant and unseeing, waiting for whatever Jace decides to do next.

“Alec,” he says finally, and that makes sense, he supposes; Clary explained the parabatai bond to him vaguely once, enough to know that to kill one inflicts agony on the other. When your life, your very soul, isn’t completely your own anymore, there must be so much more to consider. “He felt me die before - I couldn’t do that to him again.”

Simon nods even though he can tell Jace isn’t looking at him, both men staring into the spectal of New York’s lights. The wind is light enough that it just grazes over them, the last faint strains of Jace’s cologne drifting across the gap between them, which all of a sudden feels like a chasm

Simon doesn’t reach out and put a hand on Jace’s shoulder and tell him that they’ll be okay. He doesn’t know that. He doesn’t even believe that. 

“Shadowhunters die young,” Jace adds, ripping the label of the beer bottle absently. “A lot of them are from suicide but no one wants to talk about it.” He puts the bottle to his lips again only to realise that it’s empty and he places it down on the stone of the balcony below him. “No one wants to call them suicides either since a lot of them happen in battle, but that’s what they are. Skilled shadowhunters at the top of their game taken down by two or three demons.”

Simon finally looks at him, and the Jace before him is not a Jace he knows. Jace is usually all chest-puffed arrogance and pup-eyed distress. This Jace looks like a man who's seen some shit, a numb soldier lost in the haze of bad memories, eyes empty and filled at the same time.

Simon looks away, feeling distinctly like he’s observing something not for his eyes. He takes a long swallow of the wine, closing his eyes and just feeling the way it slips down his throat with the bleak helplessness of the night. The lights shining off in the distance are nothing but spotlights for the way he thinks about his body slumped on the concrete. Would they sweep him and the proof of his self-destruction under the rug just like they do with their own soldiers? He doesn’t doubt it.

“It’s getting late,” Jace says, eyes still unseeing but it’s like his body has woken up, the quiet stillness dispelled for another while. “I should go to bed.” He moves to grab the empty bottles sitting in a neat row on the floor in front of his feet. 

Simon picks up the wine bottle and hands it off to Jace, still three-quarters full. “Pour it out,” he tells him. Jace takes it from him without question. “I’m gonna stay up here for another while.”

Jace gathers all the bottles more firmly in his arms and walks away, towards the access door. Simon stares out into the cold starry abysus of New York, brain finally quiet from the wine and the company.

“Simon,” Jace calls back to him, standing in the open doorframe with a hand ready to close it behind him. Simon looks back, and the two meet eyes for the first time in hours, like an electrical connection in a world of bleak greys. He swallows, searching for the words in the vastness of the moment, the sky open above them making the world seem infinite. “Don’t jump.”

He lets the words hang for a moment, unsure how to reply to the most direct plead for his survival since the ones in the office with Valentine. How fitting it is that both times Jace was the one saying it.

“I won’t.” 

They hold eye contact until Jace nods and takes leave. The door shuts quietly behind him, and Simon turns back to contemplate the dazzling lights of the city that never sleeps once more.

**Author's Note:**

> everyone stay safe and i wish u positive mental health and happiness
> 
> [my main blog](http://vexedcer.tumblr.com/) [my writing blog](http://residentqueer.tumblr.com/)


End file.
